Jens Lekman: Positively Negative

A native of Gothenberg, Sweden, Jens Lekman has never been one to take songwriting inspiration from the usual sources — he's shown a knack for taking unlikely subjects like drive-in bingo parlors and Rocky Dennis and infusing them with wit and romance.

Lekman's first full-length release in five years, I Know What Love Isn't, might find him facing more conventional pop-music circumstances — it's a break-up album, after all — but his endearing, self-deprecating charm is no less in tune. He says he'd had no intention to write about heartbreak; as he told us, "It just didn't feel like it was a subject that led anywhere." But it clearly proved therapeutic for Lekman, for whom rainclouds ultimately reveal silver linings.